In the case of mobile refrigerators for leisure campers, caravans, boats or the like it is normal for the refrigerator door to be provided with magnetic strips all around it. In the closed state such strips pull toward corresponding metallic abutment in the refrigerator housing. They thus ensure that the refrigerator door is sealed in its engagement with the housing right the way around. This is more particularly desired in difficult conditions involved on the road, during which the mobile refrigerator is subjected to vibrations, twisting loads and acceleration, which have a tendency to disengage the refrigerator door temporarily from the body of the refrigerator.
Conventionally a refrigerator door will have a compartment in which bottles may be placed. Such bottles load the refrigerator door during travel and exert relatively heavy inertial forces thereon. Moreover, they tend, in unfavorable conditions, to pull the refrigerator door open, when the vehicle is parked on a slope, as is sometimes not to be avoided even on camping sites.
Accordingly suggestions have already been made to fit such mobile refrigerator additionally with a hook bolt which snaps home as soon as the refrigerator door is closed and holds the refrigerator door by interlocking engagement. In order to open the refrigerator door again it is firstly necessary to disengage the hook bolt. This is usually done by thrusting on a knob, which is let into the top edge of the refrigerator door, for example by way of a linkage so that the hook bolt is shifted upward and brought out of engagement with the striker (so-called unlocking mechanism). Such a hook lock ensures that the magnetic closing forces are not overridden by accident with an unintended opening of the door.
Such self-locking hook locks are employed because other additional locking means which must be mindfully operated to function, have not proved successful. For it has been found in practice that in the case of additional but not automatic locking means the user often forgets to lock them up. The refrigerator door will then open of its own accord at the next sharp corner. As a result the entire contents of the refrigerator will be tipped out as a mess in the interior of the leisure vehicle. In the special case of campers there may even be dangers, when the owner is forgetful and fails to lock the additional locking means prior to starting off. This is particularly so in the case of refrigerators mounted athwart the direction of travel in the rear part of the camper or trailer. In the case of such refrigerators there is the danger of the refrigerator door springing open when the vehicle is suddenly braked so that the contents of the refrigerator are all spilt into the driver part of the vehicle, which is normally not shut off from the living room part of the caravan.
The use of additional automatically locking bolts of known type does however lead to problems. On the one hand in the particular case of mobile homes sojourning for several weeks at a single site, it is decidedly inconvenient to grope around in the confined interior of the vehicle normally used by several persons, and only to be able to open the refrigerator door after a separate unlocking knob has been depressed, instead of just opening the refrigerator door with one hand in a single movement, as one is wont to do at home. Difficulties are entailed in such cases in the particular case of families with small children. The unlocking knob, normally placed adjacent to the top edge of the refrigerator door is often out of the reach of small children. This is more particularly the case when the refrigerator is installed with a space underneath it for storage purposes. Owing to this grown-ups will have to stand up in the course of family meals an unnecessary number of times from the table.
Accordingly it is one object of the invention to provide a mobile refrigerator which is so locked by a hook lock that on the one hand the user continuously on the road has much less chance of forgetting locking the refrigerator door as necessary during traveling while on the other hand there is a possibility of opening the mobile refrigerator during prolonged sojourns conveniently with a single movement without having to firstly unlock the door.
The locking member restraining the hook bolt in a disengaged position and accordingly preventing engagement of the hook bolt renders it possible to permanently deactivate the hook bolt as soon as the leisure vehicle is off road at a single site and there is accordingly no necessity of securing the refrigerator door against its accidentally springing open. On the other hand the hook bolt can be rapidly and permanently activated again, when the leisure vehicle is to be on the road again. The locking member may communicate with a signal producing means which, at an appropriate time, produces a “hook bolt deactivated” warning signal, for example, when the driver turns on the ignition of the vehicle, retracts supports or takes other measures indicative of starting a journey.
Preferably the locking member is so fashioned that it may be operated independently of the unlocking mechanism and ideally so that the unlocking mechanism and the locking member are completely uncoupled from one another, i. e. from the unlocking mechanism because the hook bolt is held in the disengaged position and the unlocking mechanism is not forced to assume any particular position. This means not only a simplification of design. In fact, it is now also possible to ensure that user of a locking member will not make necessary any change as regards the unlocking mechanism, which has proved satisfactory.
In the prior art a wide variety of hook locks has been proposed in a quite different context. As a rule such hook locks are utilized for locking sliding windows or sliding doors in buildings.
Many of the prior art hook locks also already have a locking member in the widest sense of the term. A known locking member is in a position of holding the hook bolt in the disengaged position, when the sliding door or the sliding window is to remain free for movement in either direction, i. e. when locking of the hook lock is to be avoided as soon as the two halves of the sliding of the sliding window meet. Such locks are however relatively complex in structure. For in the case of such locks an attempt is made to so design the unlocking mechanism in any case present for disengaging the engaged hook bolt in the course of opening of the sliding door or of the sliding window that it is in a position of holding the hook bolt in the disengaged position.
Thus the French patent publication 2 131 119 discloses a hook lock for a sliding door or a sliding window, in the case of the hook bolt is held pivotally on the housing and on its rear side bears teeth. These teeth are engaged by a linearly moving rack. The rack is connected with the unlocking mechanism (for the hook bolt) as such for the hook bolt lock. Provided that the unlocking mechanism is suitably designed the rack may be locked in a position in which the hook bolt is disengaged.
The design of this lock is comparatively complex, since the hook bolt must be provided with teeth which must be either relatively accurately manufactured or must be lubricated to keep the actuating forces within limits. Furthermore in the case of this design the locking member is not able to be operated independently of the unlocking mechanism. Owing to such features the known hook lock is quite expensive to manufacture and furthermore care must be taken as regards the unlocking mechanism to ensure that the locking function of this lock may also be effective.
The Swiss patent publication CH 326464 discloses a hook lock for sliding room closure element, which is operated using an actuating rod, which shifts a four cornered thrust member to and fro. On the actuating rod there is a ledge which holds the hook bolt in the disengaged position as long as the actuating rod is restrained by the thrust member in its top position. This hook lock comprises a whole series of individual parts, is complex in structure and is correspondingly expensive. In this case as well it is not possible to use any desired sort of unlocking mechanism together with the hook lock since as regards the unlocking mechanism it is necessary to take into account the function of the lock itself.
Therefore a further aim of the invention is to provide a compactly designed hook lock comprising a bolt element and an associated striker element into which the hook bolt fits, the lock being suitable for installation as a module-like unit in a mobile refrigerator and which has an extremely simple configuration and offers the possibility of restraining the hook bolt in the disengaged position, while however representing a unit which operates substantially independently of the unlocking mechanism employed on the respective refrigerator.